chiangmai
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Post by chiangmai on Jan 1, 2018 17:18:33 GMT 7
I've also tried to calculate mine which I've found very difficult, mostly because one portfolio has only been open for three months and the other has been heavily modified over the past six months. Regardless, the closest I can get to a number is an 11% average in one portfolio and 12.6% in the second and neither one considers income in those numbers. Within those averages, I've seen excellent performance of several funds, Lindsell Train global returned 24.5% as did Schroder Small Cap discovery - Witan gave me 15%, Fundsmith 12.4% and Smith and Williamson Far Eastern 19.4%, Fidelity Asia 19.2%. On the bonds front: Twenty Four Dynamic produced 4.80%, Royal London Sterling Extra Yield 8%. Loosers consist of a single fund, Schroder High Yield which is down 6.2% but as said, that doesn't include income figures.
All in all I'm very pleased with what I've managed in 2017 on the investment front, due mainly to kind assistance from several members here, thank you.
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Post by rgs2001uk on Jan 3, 2018 20:29:14 GMT 7
I'll do my full reckoning on January 1st. And so I have. I hope this doesn't seem like boasting, but it's been a stonkingly good year for me (after a disappointing 2016). Over the year I'm up 22.5%, accounting in GBP. As mentioned previously, IIT did amazingly well at +77%. Also very good was JESC at +45%. The only holding that actually made a loss was Lyxor US TIPS (DR) ETF D USD GBP (-6.6%*). That said, Lyxor FTSE ActrUKGltInflLnkd(DR)ETF DGBP, RICA, and iShares J.P. Morgan $ EM Bond UCITS ETF USD (Dist) all returned less than 5% which is disappointing. The Thai baht is virtually exactly where it was at the same time last year (43.5675 v. 43.5575) so the returns in THB are virtually identical. * I bought part way through the year, so the loss is actually greater than the YTD loss. Not boasting at all, well done, like you I also had a stonkingly good year. For myself, these sort of figures present a benchmark, if I wasnt getting the same performance, I would ask myself why not? Anyway, "hanging on in quiet desperation is the english way" Yes its easy for me to knock the Yanks and Ozzies in a bit of banter. However fair play to them, The American Dream, The Lucky Country, where working class guys can make good. We Brits have a tendancy to try and knock anyone who makes a go of it and is successful, theres a sort of resentment, why the eff should we settle for mediocrity?
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chiangmai
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Post by chiangmai on Jan 6, 2018 6:45:56 GMT 7
I'm strongly considering RIT Capital Holdings as a lower risk way of holding equities, does anyone have it in their bag of tricks and/or have a view?
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AyG
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Post by AyG on Jan 6, 2018 7:23:33 GMT 7
I'm strongly considering RIT Capital Holdings as a lower risk way of holding equities, does anyone have it in their bag of tricks and/or have a view? It's trading at a premium to NAV of 6.18%. It's long term performance isn't that stellar. 10 years annualised return is 8.26% - comparable with RICA (8.49%), PNL (6.67%) which are both in the same sector, and lower risk options. (If something is genuinely lower risk is will have lower, but fairly consistent returns. That RCP returned 22.69% in 2015 suggests it's not a low risk option. Slow and steady wins the race.)
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AyG
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Post by AyG on Jan 6, 2018 14:03:38 GMT 7
a lower risk way of holding equities I think there are two approaches you should investigate: (1) Funds that can hold multiple asset classes and switch between them according to the fund managers' view of the current economic situation. However, you are very much dependent upon the quality of the crystal balls owned by the managers. In the investment trust field there's PNL and RICA. In unit trusts there's EdenTree Higher Income. Of these PNL is the most conservative. (Note that the "flexible investment" sector also includes funds that use switches between asset classes in an attempt to outperform; some funds are defensive, others are aggressive. You need to read the literature carefully to understand which is which.) (2) Funds that have a "buy and hold" approach, buying good companies at a good price, and holding them (potentially for ever). This is very much the philosophy of fairly well known American investor Warren Buffett. You can access a similar strategy in the UK with CFP SDL UK Buffettology (ghastly name, well-performing fund). Newer, but similar in many ways is Lazard Global Equity Franchise. These funds are all easy to understand, and so contrast greatly with Ritter. Just have a look at some of the top 10 holdings of RCP and see what you can find out about them: - HCIF Offshore - no website I could find - Eisler Capital Fund - website eislercapital.com/ (with zero information) - Attestor Value Fund - no website - Lansdowne Developed Markets Fund - website www.lansdownepartners.com/ (with zero information) - Soroban (I presume Soroban Capital Partners) - no website, though NASDAQ did have some holdings information at www.nasdaq.com/quotes/institutional-portfolio/soroban-capital-partners-lp-852605You are very much buying into a black box with RCP. On the flip side, Lord Rothschild with his reported close Illuminati connections, quite possibly has great insider information.
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chiangmai
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Post by chiangmai on Jan 6, 2018 17:28:00 GMT 7
Thanks for that AyG, really.
I already have RICA, RIT, RUffer and Troy Trojan on my list so I'll add the names you provided as well and start my research tomorrow. The catalyst for this change was that I reviewed the risk levels of the holdings I bought in October and a couple of them have increased to where portfolio risk is too high for my liking - two of my MA funds have now gone to their equity ceilings and their risk level has moved in line with that, Baillie Gifford Managed B and Royal London Sustainable World Trust being another. I like the idea of MA funds but I'm not sure today's market is right for an 85% equity holding in them (they were 60% when I purchased) hence I'm in need of something with a lower risk profile. This is all a part of the learning process on my part so I'm not unduly concerned, it's just that I am getting nervous about the state of the equities market and would like to have a lower risk profile in place for when the inevitable happens.
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Post by Fletchsmile on Jan 7, 2018 22:20:33 GMT 7
I posted elsewhere that I think RICA has lost its way in recent years. For an investment vehicle with such a flexible mandate its returns have been poor in the last 5 years. It's 10 year performance is very much flattered by the earlier years. After the GFC when virtually everything was making great returns as from the lows after the crash
For someone living in Thailand, throw in the currency risk vs THB and I really can't see the attraction. I can see the attraction of what it was doing 15 years again, but it has changed its focus. Also possibly for someone very low risk appetite in the UK.
It's 1 year return is abysmal at under 3%, when you consider that most things had a very strong year last year. MSCI world index was up over 20% and the MSCI EM index over 30%. So for a mixed allocation fund with some exposure to equities how do they manage to get such a low return?
It's 5 year return is also only 4.7% p.a. in sterling terms. That's only around 25% cumulative. There have been some very good returns to have in the last 5 years, 2017 as mentioned was a strong year, 2013/14/16 were also decent. Only 2015 was a tough year. Its returns numbers are also in GBP terms, and sterling is down vs THB on 5 years, knocking probably a third ball park of that. So in THB terms it's been returning close to 3% p.a. during bull markets in both equities and bonds !!
It's makes the Thai mattresses we've just bought look good value. (Admittedly Slumberland a fine UK brand)
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chiangmai
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Post by chiangmai on Jan 8, 2018 8:37:56 GMT 7
I appreciate there's a lot of advertising and spin associated with these things but the Winterflood analyst on page 13 of the attached is full of praise for RIT, the comments perhaps worth a glance. view.joomag.com/trustnet-magazine-issue-35-december-2017/0078159001513757796/p14?shortI've also had to set aside RICA this time around, since I'm not overly comfortable with it - CFP Buffetologhy on the other hand looks very interesting. I'm also replacing a long held Fidelity Moneybuilder with GAM, something I should have done months ago.
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Post by Fletchsmile on Jan 8, 2018 10:32:05 GMT 7
Think you've made the right decision in setting aside RICA for now. The stats on Trustnet for RICA also don't inspire making a new investment in it www2.trustnet.com/Factsheets/Factsheet.aspx?fundCode=I0F09&univ=T- 4th quartile in the flexible investment sector over 1 and 3 years. - Over 5 years NAV is 24.5% vs 47.7% for the sector. Most likely would put it 4th quartile too - 1 year NAV is actually worse than its share price and only +1.6%. That's abysmal after 2017 - 40% is currently in non-UK / UK index linked gilts and 8% in cash. That's half the fund! This makes the fund charges look ridiculously high at over 1%. If someone wants index linked securities then iShares do a global linked ETF and UK gilt index linked ETF which both charge only 0.25% www.ishares.com/uk/institutional/en/products/251746/ishares-global-inflation-linked-government-bond-ucits-etfwww.ishares.com/uk/institutional/en/products/251717/ishares-indexlinked-gilts-ucits-etf?siteEntryPassthrough=true&locale=en_GB&userType=institutionalSomeone would have done better by simply picking combining those 2 ETFs for half of the allocation they want to put in RICA and then a simple global equity equity tracker - It also trades at a 3% premium. Again given half is in index linked bonds it makes no sense to me to pay over NAV for those. -Given the abysmal returns one also has to suspect that its equity picking skills have been severely lacking. There have been some great opportunities Looking a bit more at its equities. The biggest country holdings are: >Japan equities are 17% of the weighting. Nikkei 225 was up 19% last year. >UK equities are 9%. FTSE100 and FTSE250 were up around 8% and 15% last year respectively >US equities are 8%. Dow/S&P/Nasdaq returned 25%/19%/28% last year RICA seem to have got a lot of the calls wrong again in 2017.... ... and to add insult to injury, for a 3 year time frame, it's gain in NAV of 12.5% in sterling terms has been completely wiped out by the depreciation of GBP vs THB by 14.1%, so a Thai based person would see a loss of 1.6% in THB terms for 3 years before taking into account inflation !
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Post by rgs2001uk on Jan 8, 2018 11:21:12 GMT 7
Three ITs you may wish to consider, IMHO offer better value than RIT.
Bankers, Brunner and Caledonia.
Better dividends and better capital growth.
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chiangmai
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Post by chiangmai on Jan 8, 2018 12:36:21 GMT 7
Thanks for the thought but I'm probably not going anywhere with RIT right now, I was intrigued by it and as AyG points out, the lack of data supporting its performance. I'm also trying to stay away from IT's which is a purely personal choice at this stage, perhaps I'll become more comfortable with them going forward but not today. In truth, I'm really happy with 90% of my holdings and realise that what I'm doing now is tweaking and this will need to stop soon, but I wanted to get the risk levels back down to where I'm comfortable (now done) and also to swap out a universally agreed laggard fund which is currently WIP.
One thing I hadn't appreciated is the degree to which risk profiles change, especially on MA funds. I had bought into one 85/15 fund when it was 60% equities and the risk rating was a little higher than average, two months later it's at 85% equities and the risk rating is high, that doesn't work for me. I buy into a MA fund in the knowledge that the fund manager can switch in and out of assets as needs be, not for him to switch in and out of risk levels! I'm therefore going to be checking risk levels probably monthly.
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Post by rgs2001uk on Jan 8, 2018 13:31:38 GMT 7
Simple solution, sell the ten percent you are unhappy with and reinvest in the ninety percent you are happy with.
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chiangmai
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Post by chiangmai on Jan 10, 2018 2:43:34 GMT 7
How much do you think is a reasonable charge for a fund?
I've just received my first quarterly FCA fact sheet from my platform provider and it's quite interesting, it shows details of the charges of all funds I hold, annual, transactional, exit etc. It also shows platform charges and growth rates on the basis of low medium and high and projected values after x years.
It seems my average fund charge is 0.85% although the annual ongoing charge is only 0.73%, that doesn't seem excessive to me although once the platform cost gets factored in, charges can reach 2% per year. Of course I'm slightly disadvantaged by this "no IFA" thingy which adds 0.80% to my fund buying costs and others perhaps wont have that.
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AyG
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Post by AyG on Jan 10, 2018 6:05:48 GMT 7
How much do you think is a reasonable charge for a fund? How long is a piece of string? Certain strategies are much more expensive to run than others because of the cost of research. Passive funds, which usually don't require much research, should be very cheap. How Virgin gets away with charging 1% for its UK tracker is scandalous. For reasons I'm not clear about, fees are usually significantly lower on bond funds than equity funds. What is iniquitous is that charges don't come down when funds get very large, despite the economies of scale. For example, Aberdeen charges as standard 1.75% on a $5.4 billion fund. That potentially brings in $94.5 million/year.
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chiangmai
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Post by chiangmai on Jan 10, 2018 6:24:42 GMT 7
A part of the answer must lay in relative strength, Lindsell Train Global costs me 0.75% whereas Fundmith costs 1.43%, both broadly similar funds with a similar geographic spread - it's a factor I hadn't dwelled on too seriously in the past but I shall now add it to my list of boxes to check and tick.
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